A Modern Day Emergency
by V.Evergreen
Summary: Pepper knew that Steve would respond to any emergency. She just didn't know that included what to do when someones hair won't co-operate. Friendship.


The main floor of the tower was empty when Pepper rushed onto it with a stack of paper work tucked under her arm and a coffee in her hand. She was running late for the quarterly board meeting and it seemed like the world around her was conspiring to make her morning even slower.

Tony had wisely removed himself from the situation that morning and was shut away safely in his workshop. Pepper wasn't quite sure where the other Avengers were but she didn't have the time to worry about it. She hadn't quite realised just how much work there was to be done today and it wasn't helping that the board meeting was in thirty minutes and she had yet to even leave the tower.

Quickly, Pepper grabbed her bag and cast a critical eye around the room to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. She didn't think so but the floor she was on seemed to be the communal room for the team and as a result she doubted that she would have had the time to dig through all of the mess they left behind even if she was missing something. She allowed herself a small smile as she made to head off of the floor; if she was fast she could still make the meeting on time and then it would only be a matter of finishing the contracts and reviewing the-

Her thoughts were abruptly pulled off course as she rounded around the corner of the hall and walked headfirst into a chest. Her notion of remaining on time were all but scattered to the wind when she bit back a gasp at the uncomfortable heat of the coffee soaking through her blouse and onto her skin.

"Ma'am? Miss Potts, are you ok?" Looking up from where she was trying to pull the fabric of her clothing away from her skin to stop the burning she saw the concerned face of Steve Rogers.

"Fine, I'm fine." She replied distractedly, "Sorry, I'm going to have to change this." She said indicating her shirt before rushing off. This was just another thing that had set her back so far, something she really didn't have time for.

She rushed into her bedroom, to the wardrobe, and hurriedly changed her shirt. She moved as quickly as she could and in the end ended up puling the blouse over her head before doing up the buttons. Without bothering to look in the mirror she rushed back out to the main area and was slightly touched to see another coffee sitting on the counter for her in the place of where her previous one. Steve looked up from the coffee that he was drinking to offer her a smile which mangled on his face slightly when he looked at her.

"Thanks for the coffee." She said with a quick smile before making to dash to get out of the tower. There was no way she was going to be on time anymore but she could at least be not too late. She didn't hear Steve calling her until she was almost in the elevator.

"Miss Potts? Pepper? Wait!" Pepper looked back him impatiently.

"Steve, I'm sorry but I've really got to go-"

"Have you seen your hair?" The strangeness of the question coming from _Steve _made her pause.

"No," She said cautiously as she moved towards the nearest mirror hanging across the wall of the hallway, "what's wrong with it- Oh God!" Pepper's hands flew up to her head as she looked on in horror at her reflection.

Where her hair had been neat and pulled away from her face with a simple style of a few clips it now looked a mess. Half of it was still held back while most of it had escaped and was now making her look as if she'd just rolled out of bed. While the look may have worked for Tony, it most certainly did not for Pepper. Desperately she tried to fix some of it quickly, aware of the seconds still passing her by. She looked in dismay as she noted with some incredulity that she had just made it worse. She could recall pulling a blouse over her head but she failed to see how on earth it had caused this.

"I can't go to work looking like this!" She all but moaned. Normally it wouldn't matter so much but she needed to cast a good impression as the CEO at the quarterly board meeting and showing up looking like this wasn't going to do that. Especially on top of being late.

"It's ok, I can help." For a second Pepper had to look at Steve to make sure it really was him who had spoken but there was no one else it could have been. He was looking at her thoughtfully.

"Really Steve, I don't think you can help with this-"

"You said you were late, right?" Pepper just nodded as she continued to try and fix her to no avail, "Can't you just postpone the meeting?"

"Normally, but it's a quarterly meeting… important meeting," She amended as she saw confusion flit across Steve's face, "And I'm not exactly popular on the board. They still don't really trust me." Apparently, it didn't matter to them that over the last ten years she had put more work into the company than Tony had, they still questioned her every move and resisted every change.

"So you can't postpone it?"

Pepper sighed "No, not this time."

Steve frowned thoughtfully, "Can I borrow your phone?" He just looked at her expectantly with his hand outstretched . Suspiciously Pepper handed it over. It took him a second but he eventually managed to successfully navigate to her contact list, "Which of these is the most senior board member?" He asked. Pepper answered automatically before trying to grab her phone back when she realised his plan,

"No!" She exclaimed as she tried to reach for her phone back but Steve simply stepped away from her before pressing dial button. Pepper silently cursed whoever had taught him how to use a cell phone.

"Hello, this is Captain Rogers." Pepper raised an eyebrow at the use of Steve's rank. She also noticed with a bit of amusement that he was using as what she thought of as his 'official voice'. It was the tone of a soldier that left no room for argument. She had no doubt that board member he was talking to had suddenly become very nervous.

"I apologize for the inconvenience but Miss Potts will not be able to attend the board meeting this morning." He listened for second to the man at the other end of the line, "Why can't she come in?" He shot a panicked look at Pepper who sent back an amused one when it was obvious he hadn't though this through completely, "Well," he said trying to recover his composure, "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say." After another second of listening to the board member Steve handed back the phone to Pepper with a grin.

"What did you do?" Asked Pepper in a strangled voice.

"You said that you couldn't postpone the meeting," reasoned Steve, "you didn't say I couldn't."

Pepper opened her mouth to object but no sound came out. It actually made sense. What board member in their right mind was going to argue with _Captain America_? "Thanks." She said with a smile, picturing the man's face who had just been inadvertently blind sided by Steve.

"No problem. They've rearranged the meeting for two hours time." Pepper sent him a grateful smile.

"Really, thanks for that." She said genuinely.

Steve just waved away her thanks before looking at her critically, "Now, what are you going to do with your hair?"

"What?" Asked Pepper reaching up to her head with a hand, "Oh, well I've got the time now I'll just redo it."

Steve shook his head, "Have you got any clips?" Pepper nodded unsure of where this was going.

~o~o~o~

A few minutes later Pepper found herself sat in the chair in her room facing the mirror as Steve stood behind her. She still wasn't completely with it considering the shock of Captain America offering to fix her hair.

She could see him behind her in the mirror and she didn't know whether to laugh as he stood there pinning her hair back with a few pins clasped between his teeth.

"I can do my own hair-" She began as she automatically reached back to feel what he'd done only to have her hand gently batted away as he chuckled. She was a little bit apprehensive about seeing the end result especially seeing as a world war two soldier was fixing her hair for her.

"Nearly done." He said, his voice coming out muffled as he spoke around the two remaining clips. Carefully and oh-so-gently he pushed the last two into her hair. "There what d'you think?"

Pepper turned to see her hair with slight trepidation. What she saw surprised her. Her hair was all delicately pinned back with several tendrils twined and pinned to make a braid. The overall effect was very pleasant though there were definite elements of the forties style present.

"How did you learn to do that?" Asked Pepper in awe. There was no way she could have done that with someone else's hair, let alone her own. Steve blushed and mumbled something before Pepper's questioning look made him repeat it louder.

"When I did the Captain America tours," Pepper nodded, she vaguely remembered hearing something about Steve doing propaganda tours to raise sales in the war, "There wasn't always enough time for all the showgirls to do their hair so…I helped."

Pepper couldn't bite back a smile at the thought of all those dancers having their hair done by Captain America. It just… she wasn't sure why but it suddenly struck her as incredibly funny and she couldn't help a slight giggle that escaped.

"Hey," Said Steve sounding a bit defensive, "I was doing that tour for six months surrounded by dancers, of course I was going to learn _something_!"

"No, no! I'm not laughing at you I promise!" Pepper hastened to reassure him. She supposed that being a man from the forties who could fix a girls hair would cause a little bit of ridicule but she thought nothing of it, "I think it's great, it just…not something I would expect from you is all."

Getting up from her seat Pepper kissed Steve on the cheek, holding back another laugh as he turned bright red. "Thank you." She said as she left the room to gather her things for work. Now she had the time she might as well be early.

It was only when she got into the car and was well on her way to the office that she resolved to keep this particular talent of Steve's a secret. She was pretty sure that Tony and possibly Clint would never leave him alone for it and besides…

If she had another hair type emergency it was always good to know that someone had her back.

…..

A/N- I'm not quite sure what inspired this but here you go. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it, if you did (or didn't) please leave a review!

As I said I don't know why I had to write this but it wasn't going to leave me alone until I did. I just think that with all those tours Steve did with a load of dancers he was bound to have picked up a thing or two somewhere!

Thanks again,

VE


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